One my goals for the year was to turn off the television. But it would be all too easy to keep sitting on the couch in front of our laptops, just replacing one screen with another. We’ve got dominoes and Scrabble, but we haven’t begun building our game collection (which will come in even handier when Evan’s older and can play along with us). Iello Games sent me a copy of Steam Park, an incredible new board game, to review, and the timing was perfect for meeting my goal’s challenge.
In Steam Park, each of the 2-4 players is tasked with creating a coal-powered amusement park. Your park will consist of beautifully illustrated three-dimensional rides and attractions, and building your park is only the beginning. Players also have to manage park employees, clean up after park visitors, and invest in advertising to keep those messy visitors coming,
The game has two difficulty levels – one for beginners who want a more straightforward experience, and one for advanced gamers whose play is a mix of skill and strategy. To learn more about the specifics of the gameplay, check out this thorough review of the game from Tom Vasel from The Dice Tower:
One fun aspect of this game is the speed-rolling of the dice at the beginning of each turn; there’s advantages to settling on the dice you want early and being able since you can get a better spot in the turn order the more quickly you roll. Some frantic action can result, unlike other games where everyone goes in turn and what you roll matter more than how quickly you roll it.
The game maxes out at six turns for each player, so strategy also plays a big role. At the end of the game, the player with the most Denari (the Steam Park unit of money) wins the game. Do you want to earn your money by attracting visitors with the cleanliness and security of your park or by having lots of rides (or plenty of bathrooms)?
There was a significant amount of assembly required to get the game ready to play – all the pieces are cardboard (with the exception of park visitors, which are little colored wooden figures) than need to punched from die-cut cards and, in the case of the rides and stands, constructed via notches on each piece. But the assembly goes quickly and the game box is big enough that you can leave everything assembled for packing and storage, so the assembly time is a one-time thing.
The rules of the game are easy to grasp quickly, and a typical game with four players takes about an hour (so two players can go really quickly). First, all players roll their six dice and race to get their turn order, choosing which dice to keep or re-roll based on the symbols on the face of each die. Next is the “dirt phase.” Based on the combination of what was rolled, what’s on your turn order card, the visitors to your park, and so on, each player adds dirt to or removes dirt from their dirt pile. So here’s the part where it pays to keep your park clean.
The “Action Phase” is where the magic happens – there’s lots of different options for what you do on each turn based on how you rolled. You can build rides and stands (bathrooms, security, casinos, etc.), clean your park, attract visitors, collect money based on your bonus cards, or choose to expand your park (you start with a large tract of land and can add smaller blocks to it to build rides and stands on). After all the action is complete, the round enters the “Income Phase” and each player collects Denari for the visitors to their park.
Steam Park is a fun game that’s not too easy but not too hard. It can take a while to set up since there’s lots of pieces to be sorted into piles – Denari, dirt, visitors, rides, stands… the list goes on. For that reason, I’d recommend playing it more than once to make it “worth it” if you’re like us and playing as a twosome (or if your gameplay moves pretty quickly once you have the rules down). But it’s also a great game to play with older kids since the winner can be determined by luck and dexterity as much as strategy. Steam Park is an excellent addition to our fledgling game collection.
To keep up with Steam Park and Iello’s other games, be sure to visit their website, or follow them on Facebook and Twitter.
I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.
I like the concept and I used to play a computer game along these lines. However, I like the board game idea because it’s touchable!
An hour is not bad at all. It sounds similar to a train game we play but that takes quite a while.
This is pretty awesome. I love the concept.
I love board games, this one looks like a blast!
I love board games, and we need to turn off the TV, too. Thanks!
I’m with you on turning off the TV. And I love playing board games, I’m going to buy this and play it with my boys, they’ve got madly into a game called Connect 4 recently, but good to have options. PS: Love your blog 😉 x
My boys are obsessed with two games: Risk and Stratego they like Chess though too.
its been so long since we’ve played an actual board game this looks cute
I have never heard of this game, but it looks fun!
I haven’t played board games since I was a kid. But this Steam Park by Iello Games looks like lot of fun. I’m sure my nieces & nephew would play it with me.
We are always on the lookout for new board games. This looks like a lot of fun!
I love your idea of building a board game collection to avoid staring at the TV all the time! I’d like to do the same 🙂 A steampunk games seems like really interesting concept. Thanks for the review!
I’ve never heard of this game. Our children love board games though!
I have never heard of this game before. But we LOVE LOVE LOVE board games and this sounds amazing!!! What are the ages that can play? How long does it take to finish a game? (like is it hours and hours like risk or monopoly)
I think the game makers recommend it for 10 and up, since there’s a lot of moving parts to keep track of, but once you try playing it you could probably simplify the rules and make up your own game for younger kids to play. And with four people, a game takes about an hour. 🙂
Oh this one sounds like fun! I don’t think my boys are quite old enough for it yet, but they both love amusement parks and games so I’m keeping this one in mind for the future! 🙂
What an interesting concept. I’d probably find a better way to store it so that I’m not constantly putting the pieces together and taking them apart.
The box is big enough to store the pieces assembled, Crystal. So you just have to put the rides and things together the first time. 🙂
I love board games and I passed on my appreciation to my kids. This game sounds complex in a good way. Like, I wanna go get it right now to see what it’s all about. I’ve never heard of it but I’m liking it already! It’s so different, I have to check it out.
Very cool looking! This sounds like a great game for family night.
I love board games, had so much playing them with the kids when they were young.
Looks like a cool game.
What a fun looking game, my boys would love the 3-d aspect of it.
This game sounds perfect for family game night!
We LOVE games here and this would be a great addition!
This sounds like a super fun game. I like that there are different difficulties so that kids can play or you can play with just adults. We need to be better about turning off the tv too and this would help us!